Pogačar Stomps the Competition in Livigno’s Thin Air | Giro d’Italia Stage 15 2024

Tadej Pogačar continued his domination in the 2024 Giro d’Italia with an impressive victory on the queen stage, dropping easily all of his GC rivals on Foscagno and later surpassing the strongest breakaway rider, Nairo Quintana, on the final climb.

It was the queen stage of this Giro d’Italia, with 5,751 metres of elevation gain in a 222-kilometre-long stage. As there was no Jonas Vingegaard with a Visma Lease a Bike mountain train, it seemed unlikely that Pogačar would crack at altitude like on Mont Ventoux, Col du Granon and Col de la Loze. There were no steep climbs on Stage 15, but it was hard nonetheless with Colle di San Zeno (13.7 km, 6.7%), Passo del Mortirollo (12.8 km, 7.6%) and Passo di Foscagno (14.6 km, 6.3%) as the longest climbs.

UAE Emirates controlled the breakaway for the whole day as many attempted to win the stage, including Nairo Quintana, Juan Pedro Lopez, George Steinhauser, Michael Storer, Julian Alaphilippe, Pelayo Sanchez, Jhonatan Narvaez and other strong riders. Only Storer was somewhat close in GC to Pogačar, being 9:11 min behind before stage 15 but the Slovenian wanted to win the prestigious queen stage.

Thymen Arensman in the peloton spent 5,458 kilojoules before Passo di Foscagno. 5 hours and 18 minutes with 14.50 kj/kg/h is the hardest stage in our database in terms of kilojoules and the stage was intense with long climbs and valleys ridden at full gas. Mortirolo was done at 5.45 ᵉW/Kg for 45 minutes.

Foscagno is not the steepest of climbs, but Pogačar was so much better than everyone else in the GC group. He immediately opened a huge gap in the middle of a climb after Felix Großschartner and Rafal Majka did their best before the attack to lift the pace. Dani Martinez tried to follow for a bit, while Geraint Thomas decided to conserve energy and avoid blowing up, as it is almost impossible to follow Pogačar. He almost caught every breakaway rider on the climb except Nairo Quintana.

Pogačar averaged 6.10 ᵉW/Kg for 35:30 min on Foscagno. The climb itself is at high altitude with the top being 2,287 metres above sea level and the average altitude being 1,820 metres. Adjusting for altitude, Pogačar would have done 6.56 ᵉW/Kg for 35:30 min at sea level. It is his 8th-best career performance when adjusted for altitude, but as he did more than 5,000 kilojoules before the climb, it is likely a Top 3 performance of his career. Pogačar after the attack did 6.88 ᵉW/Kg for 13:07 min, which is an even more impressive performance at high altitude than the whole climb.

Romain Bardet was the second best from the GC group with 5.69 ᵉW/Kg for 37:15 min, launching with 2.5 km to go from the top. Thomas, Arensman, Martinez in the 11 rider big GC group averaged 5.54 ᵉW/Kg and lost 2:22 min in a short period to Pogačar.